‘You reap what you sow’: Russians party despite record Covid figures
Passengers, many of them unmasked, board the metro at Park Pobedy station in Moscow.
At Simach, a trendy bar and nightclub in the city centre, the small, sweaty dance floor was packed and a long queue of chatty people formed outside.
Looking at the crowd, it is easy to forget that Russia is at the centre of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, recording daily record deaths and infections just as global fatalities from the disease have fallen to their lowest level in a year.
“Thank God we can go to bars and there are no restrictions. I am against any lockdowns, they will destroy my business,“ said Natalia Draganova, 34, who runs a small clothes shop in the city.
Russia topped the symbolic figure of 1,000 daily deaths on Saturday for the first time since the start of the pandemic, and hit a new record in infection numbers on Monday with 34,325 cases reported.
Officials say the country is quickly running out of hospital beds and Russia’s chief doctor, Denis Protsenko, described the situation on Friday as “near critical”, with vaccinations at a standstill.
Several regions reintroduced QR codes for access to public places last week as well as mandatory vaccination for certain groups, but Moscow and St Petersburg – home to by far the biggest clusters of infections – have so far opted against new measures. The two cities are among the most open places in Europe.
For many like Draganova, talk of new restrictions brings back painful memories of March 2020, when Russia went into a full lockdown for more than two months. Small and medium-sized businesses were disproportionally hit because the authorities provided little support to private firms, preferring to spend their resources on state employees seen as the core of the Kremlin’s support.
“I almost lost everything, so I would like to avoid that scenario at all costs,” Draganova said, a sentiment echoed by many.
During the first coronavirus wave, 60% of Russian households said they had lost income as a result of the economic crisis.
“Russians have consistently shown more concern about the economic situation than the epidemiological one,” said Christian Fröhlich, a sociology professor at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics who studies public dissent.
“People have very low expectations from the government and don’t expect to receive any support during a lockdown. This helps explain why many prefer for the country to stay open despite the deaths.”
When Moscow did briefly introduce QR codes this summer, it quickly abandoned the programme after business owners complained of reduced revenues.
But it is not only the economy that has led Russians to seemingly accept life alongside Covid-19.
Polls show that 55% say they are unafraid of contracting the virus, and experts argue the Kremlin’s contradictory messaging has sown confusion and suspicion among the population.
The deputy speaker of Russia’s parliament, Petr Tolstoy, on Saturday issued a rare admission of the state’s failure to communicate the dangers of the pandemic to the public effectively.
“We have to be honest, the government lost the information campaign on the fight against coronavirus,” he said.
Denis Volkov, the director of the independent polling organisation the Levada Center, said the government had sent “far too many mixed messages to the public about the pandemic”, while state-owned media had spent an excessive amount of time downplaying the pandemic and ridiculing other nations for their harsh lockdowns.
“When the authorities finally started to take a more consistent position, it was already too late and many distrusted the official line,” he said.
One study also showed that nearly two-thirds of Russians believed coronavirus was a bioweapon created by humans.
Volkov also said the Kremlin had repeatedly declared victory over the pandemic, lifting lockdown measures ahead of politically important events.
At the height of infections in the summer of 2020, Moscow abruptly lifted all restrictions to push through the Victory Day parade, Russia’s annual show of military hardware, as well as the referendum on constitutional changes that allowed Vladimir Putin to run for further terms as president.
“You reap what you sow. Many stopped taking Covid seriously after being told over and over that pandemic was finished. This in turn is reflected in the lack of urgency to get the jab,” Volkov said.
Only a third of Russians have been vaccinated and opinion polls show that more than half of the population do not plan to get a shot. The country’s sluggish vaccination campaign has meant it has not broken the link between infections, hospital admissions and deaths as countries in the west have.
In an emotional post on Friday that underlined the nation’s perceived lax attitude towards the pandemic, Protsenko urged people to take the jab.
“People, it’s true, the coronavirus is not a joke or fiction,” he wrote on Telegram. “It’s amazing that you still need to convince people of that in the second year of the pandemic.”
While Moscovites partied and went out for brunch over the weekend, doctors on the coronavirus frontline also painted a dark picture of their reality.
“We can’t go on like this. We don’t have the stamina for another wave,” said Katerina, 24, a nurse working at the flagship Kommunarka hospital in Moscow. She is one of the many medical students mobilised since the start of the pandemic to work in hospitals across the country.
“Every day I see people die while the vaccine is just out there. It makes me so angry.”
‘You reap what you sow’: Russians party despite record Covid figures
Passengers, many of them unmasked, board the metro at Park Pobedy station in Moscow.
At Simach, a trendy bar and nightclub in the city centre, the small, sweaty dance floor was packed and a long queue of chatty people formed outside.
Looking at the crowd, it is easy to forget that Russia is at the centre of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, recording daily record deaths and infections just as global fatalities from the disease have fallen to their lowest level in a year.
“Thank God we can go to bars and there are no restrictions. I am against any lockdowns, they will destroy my business,“ said Natalia Draganova, 34, who runs a small clothes shop in the city.
Russia topped the symbolic figure of 1,000 daily deaths on Saturday for the first time since the start of the pandemic, and hit a new record in infection numbers on Monday with 34,325 cases reported.
Officials say the country is quickly running out of hospital beds and Russia’s chief doctor, Denis Protsenko, described the situation on Friday as “near critical”, with vaccinations at a standstill.
Several regions reintroduced QR codes for access to public places last week as well as mandatory vaccination for certain groups, but Moscow and St Petersburg – home to by far the biggest clusters of infections – have so far opted against new measures. The two cities are among the most open places in Europe.
For many like Draganova, talk of new restrictions brings back painful memories of March 2020, when Russia went into a full lockdown for more than two months. Small and medium-sized businesses were disproportionally hit because the authorities provided little support to private firms, preferring to spend their resources on state employees seen as the core of the Kremlin’s support.
“I almost lost everything, so I would like to avoid that scenario at all costs,” Draganova said, a sentiment echoed by many.
During the first coronavirus wave, 60% of Russian households said they had lost income as a result of the economic crisis.
“Russians have consistently shown more concern about the economic situation than the epidemiological one,” said Christian Fröhlich, a sociology professor at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics who studies public dissent.
“People have very low expectations from the government and don’t expect to receive any support during a lockdown. This helps explain why many prefer for the country to stay open despite the deaths.”
When Moscow did briefly introduce QR codes this summer, it quickly abandoned the programme after business owners complained of reduced revenues.
But it is not only the economy that has led Russians to seemingly accept life alongside Covid-19.
Polls show that 55% say they are unafraid of contracting the virus, and experts argue the Kremlin’s contradictory messaging has sown confusion and suspicion among the population.
The deputy speaker of Russia’s parliament, Petr Tolstoy, on Saturday issued a rare admission of the state’s failure to communicate the dangers of the pandemic to the public effectively.
“We have to be honest, the government lost the information campaign on the fight against coronavirus,” he said.
Denis Volkov, the director of the independent polling organisation the Levada Center, said the government had sent “far too many mixed messages to the public about the pandemic”, while state-owned media had spent an excessive amount of time downplaying the pandemic and ridiculing other nations for their harsh lockdowns.
“When the authorities finally started to take a more consistent position, it was already too late and many distrusted the official line,” he said.
One study also showed that nearly two-thirds of Russians believed coronavirus was a bioweapon created by humans.
Volkov also said the Kremlin had repeatedly declared victory over the pandemic, lifting lockdown measures ahead of politically important events.
At the height of infections in the summer of 2020, Moscow abruptly lifted all restrictions to push through the Victory Day parade, Russia’s annual show of military hardware, as well as the referendum on constitutional changes that allowed Vladimir Putin to run for further terms as president.
“You reap what you sow. Many stopped taking Covid seriously after being told over and over that pandemic was finished. This in turn is reflected in the lack of urgency to get the jab,” Volkov said.
Only a third of Russians have been vaccinated and opinion polls show that more than half of the population do not plan to get a shot. The country’s sluggish vaccination campaign has meant it has not broken the link between infections, hospital admissions and deaths as countries in the west have.
In an emotional post on Friday that underlined the nation’s perceived lax attitude towards the pandemic, Protsenko urged people to take the jab.
“People, it’s true, the coronavirus is not a joke or fiction,” he wrote on Telegram. “It’s amazing that you still need to convince people of that in the second year of the pandemic.”
While Moscovites partied and went out for brunch over the weekend, doctors on the coronavirus frontline also painted a dark picture of their reality.
“We can’t go on like this. We don’t have the stamina for another wave,” said Katerina, 24, a nurse working at the flagship Kommunarka hospital in Moscow. She is one of the many medical students mobilised since the start of the pandemic to work in hospitals across the country.
“Every day I see people die while the vaccine is just out there. It makes me so angry.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/18/you-reap-what-you-sow-russians-party-despite-record-covid-figures
尽管新冠病毒人数创历史新高，但俄罗斯人仍然派对
在 Simach，一家位于市中心的时尚酒吧和夜总会，小小的、汗流浃背的舞池挤满了人，外面排起了长队。 看着人群，很容易忘记俄罗斯处于全球冠状病毒大流行的中心，记录着每日创纪录的死亡人数和感染人数，而全球死于该病的人数已降至一年来的最低水平。 “感谢上帝，我们可以去酒吧，没有任何限制。我反对任何封锁措施，它们会毁了我的生意，”34 岁的娜塔莉亚·德拉加诺娃说，她在该市经营一家小服装店。
俄罗斯自pandemic以来, 在周六首次超过了每日 1,000 例死亡的标志性数字，并在周一创下了新的感染记录，报告了 34,325 例病例。
几个地区上周重新引入了进入公共场所的二维码，并为某些群体强制接种疫苗，但莫斯科和圣彼得堡——迄今为止最大的感染群发地——迄今选择反对新措施。这两个城市是欧洲最开放的地方之一。
当莫斯科在今年夏天短暂引入二维码时，在企业主抱怨收入减少后，它很快就放弃了该计划。 但不仅是经济使俄罗斯人似乎接受了与 Covid-19 共存。
民意调查显示，55% 的人表示他们不怕感染病毒，专家认为克里姆林宫自相矛盾的信息在民众中散播了混乱和怀疑。一项研究还表明，近三分之二的俄罗斯人认为冠状病毒是一种由人类制造的生物武器。 克里姆林宫一再宣布战胜大流行，在具有重要政治意义的事件发生之前取消了封锁措施。 在 2020 年夏季感染高峰期，莫斯科突然取消了所有限制，以推动胜利日阅兵、俄罗斯年度军事装备展示以及允许弗拉基米尔·普京 连任总统的宪法改革公投。 . “种瓜得瓜，种豆得豆。许多人一再被告知大流行已经结束后，就不再认真对待新冠病毒了。这反映在人们缺乏对疫苗的紧迫感上.”独立调研组织列瓦达中心的负责人丹尼斯·沃尔科夫说。
只有三分之一的俄罗斯人接种了疫苗，民意调查显示，超过一半的人口不打算接种疫苗。
当莫斯科人在周末聚会和出去吃早午餐时，冠状病毒前线的医生描绘了他们现实的黑暗画面。
莫斯科的 Kommunarka 旗舰医院工作护士卡特琳娜说:"每天我看着人们死去,而疫苗就在那里,实在生气'